Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/376

344 repeated the words, "Anola tranola, the fountain plays!" and instantly there appeared a golden cage, with a beautiful bird made of precious stones and gold, which sang like a nightingale. When the ladies saw this, they went and told it to the queen, who wished to see the bird; then she asked the same question as about the little coach, and Betta made the same reply as before; whereupon the queen, who perceived, as she thought, what a silly creature Betta was, promised to grant her request, and took the cage with the bird. And as soon as night came, she gave Pintosmalto a sleeping-draught as before, and sent him to bed. When Betta saw that he slept like a dead person, she began again to wail and lament, saying things that would have moved a flint-stone to compassion; and thus she passed another night, full of trouble, weeping and wailing and tearing her hair. But as soon as it was day, the queen came to fetch her husband, and left poor Betta in grief and sorrow, and biting her hands with vexation at the trick that had been played her.

In the morning, when Pintosmalto went to a garden outside the city-gate to pluck some figs, he met a cobbler, who lived in a room close to where Betta lay, and had not lost a word of all she had said. Then he told Pintosmalto of the weeping, lamentation and crying of the unhappy beggar-girl; and when